More Moore.....

Well, my iPad decided to be a jerk today and delete my email that I
had been writing all week! 😂 So I guess I'll have to summarize,
because I do NOT want to write that again.
I am back in Memphis! I got put up in the north area, with the OTHER
Elder Moore, which I find pretty funny. So here is my new address:

Elder Andrew Reay
2481 Crescent Glen Circle
Apt. 211
Memphis TN 38133

So anyway, not a whole lot happened this week aside from transfers.
Monday and Tuesday were spent packing and saying goodbye to people.
I'm going to miss that area, mainly for the missionaries. We had a lot
of fun :P Plus, the sisters make some really good cinnamon rolls.
Props to Sis. Bennett. (Speaking of which, apparently her mom found my
blog page somehow. So if you're reading this, hi other Sister Bennett!
Your daughter is a great missionary!) On Wednesday, I went out to
Memphis in the morning. I sat next to one of the brand new Elders, who
happened to be from Arizona! His name is Elder Erickson. It rings a
bell, I think I may remember him from somewhere. :P just kidding, he
is from my home ward!! It was great to see him it here. He got put in
an English area right by me, and he goes to the same church building
too! So we will see each other a lot.

As for my district, it's me and
Moore in the north, Elder Butler and Elder Peterson (ANOTHER English
missionary called to Spanish randomly) in the East, Elder Heaton And
Elder Spencer (he came out last transfer) in the south, and Sister
Reed with her newbie, Sister Brown, in the South as well. So we have a
pretty cool district!

The area is about the same as when I left! The East elders and us
cover the same area, so it's the same places I was in last time. We
are trying to move farther north though because it's a bit of a drive
to get there. We have some cool people, too. I'll only mention a
couple. First there's L. She is pretty cool, and she has a ton of
really good questions. She's had a bit of a rough life, so we are
trying to help her to see that the gospel of Jesus Christ can change
that. That's easy for us to say, because we've seen it! This church
has changed me more than I can say, and all of it is for the better.
That's why it's so great to be out here, telling everybody about it!
Anyway, then there is this awesome kid named J. His friend is a
returned missionary, and so we have been helping both of them to come
to church. He has already come too, which is great!

Well, in general that's about all that happened this week! We are
going to the gigantic Bass Pro Shops pyramid today. I guess the
pyramid used to be a stadium or a library or something, but now it's a
bird zoo and hunting gear shop. Welcome to the South :P Love you guys!
Hope you have a great conference weekend!

OH! I should probably mention that. For those of you who aren't
familiar with this church, every six months we have what's called a
"General Conference." We believe that our church is the original
church that has been established by God since the beginning, and that
it is the Church of Jesus Christ that he reestablished when He was
here. As such, the leadership of it consists of a Prophet and 12
Apostles, with the same power that the ancient prophets and apostles
had in the Bible. So, General Conference is a worldwide broadcast
where all of them speak and give guidance and counsel. It's really
incredible to hear an actual Prophet of God speak. It's like having
Moses or Isaiah or Paul actually right there! You want to watch? It is
on BYUtv, lds.org, and YouTube, I think. There are 4 general sessions,
on Saturday and Sunday. Check now so you know what time it would be in
your time zone, since I can't figure it out. Watch it!

The Pyramid

Teeth and Transfers - Both of Which Kinda Bug Me

Hello all!
First off, I'm getting transferred. Again. To Memphis. And from what
it looks like, I'll probably even be in the exact same area as I was 2
months ago. Sorry for the short notice, but we had no idea that I
would be leaving. Usually a trainer stays for 2 transfers, but I guess
I'm needed elsewhere!
So like I said last week, I decided to make a more general email for
everybody, and have a daily one for a smaller group of people. So,
congrats! If you are reading this, you are one of the select people
who get both :P

Monday was pretty relaxing. We didn't have any plans for p-day, so we
all just stayed at the church. We actually finished a game of Phase
10, which took about 3 hours. It was really fun! After that we headed
to the Os' house for dinner. We had some pretty good caldo de
camarron, or shrimp soup. Aside from the few shrimp that still had
heads and antennae (ew) it was pretty good. Then we had a good lesson
with S, our recent convert. After someone is baptized we are
supposed to go through the lessons with them again, so we got started
with it then. She has a really strong testimony, and it was great to
hear about her conversion. She was taught for about a year before she
made the decision. Gives me hope for some of the other people I taught
:)

Tuesday was set to be a pretty tiring but good day. We were going to
bike out to Bryant to see J at a members house, as well as some
other people we had met last week. But on the way from our first
visit, Elder Moore hit the sidewalk funny with his bike and flipped
it. He chipped pieces off of two of his teeth and loosened another
one. So that put a bit of a wrench in our day. We got an emergency
appointment at the dentist (never knew they had emergency dentist
appointments) and they filled in the chips and straightened his tooth
out. They also gave him some meds and put him on rest for the day, so
we just sat at home. The member who we were going to see in Bryant
brought us lots of food though, so we are quite grateful.

Wednesday brought more dental drama! Ironically enough, I had already
set an appointment about a slight toothache I'd had off and on for a
bit. So elder Schoenfeld and I drove out there (we needed a car and a
sitter for Moore so we split). The dentist found a chip that had
happened a while back (go fig) and a small cavity on the same tooth,
so he decided they needed to put a crown on it. So they numbed me up,
and started to grind down my tooth to prep it. It still hurt, so they
gave me more shots. That still didn't work. So they did it again, and
when it didn't work AGAIN, they decided to try again Friday. So they
sent me home with a pretty swollen mouth and broken tooth. It was
lovely. We had district meeting in the afternoon, because President
Wakolo was coming to do interviews. It was a good meeting, and we had
cheesecake Elder Moore and I had made. Our district loves us :) Then
we found out President was going to be late, so we had to wait around.
He finally showed up, and did an interview with the whole district
first, and then us individually. It went well! We were going to have
the Book of Mormon class, but all the people that come were doing
dance practice for the multibranch activity, so we ended up just
talking with Julian. Elder Salazar talked with him a lot about being a
missionary, and how he should do it! Oh, and also Sister B.
heard about Moore's tooth problems and told us she would bring some
applesauce or something for him. Well, she brought a TON of all sorts
of food, for both of us! We are really grateful.

Thursday we tried doing a lot. We left a little later since Moore's
tooth was still giving him trouble. We got to see L again, and we
killed some wasp nests on her porch she didn't know about. That was
entertaining. We tried to see some more people, but no one was home.
So then we went and contacted a referral the sisters had given us a
few weeks back, that we hadn't seen since she was never home. We
caught her this time though! She seems pretty nice. Anyway, after that
we went to the English class. No one showed up though, so we ended up
playing volleyball with the English ward.

Friday was round two at the dentists office! They got me numb on the
first try (prayer works guys, seriously) and they got the rest of my
tooth shaved down and put a temporary one on.  I recovered really
quickly from that (which I am grateful for) and we went out, finally!
We went to the V family, and tried a few more people that weren't
home. Then we went to soccer, which went really well this week! A lot
of people showed up too so we played a really good game. J and
his dad showed up! His dad plays super good, and on top of that he's
hilarious too! Apart from them, the missionaries and one other guy and
his son, it was all random guys who showed up. Anyway, we stayed
around talking for a while until the random guys pulled out beer and
marijuana. Then we figured we should go. We grabbed some homemade
cinnamon rolls from Sis. Bennett (they were delicious too she's the
best) and passed out.

Saturday started off great! We went to the baptismal service of J L
, an investigator the other elders have. It was a really nice
service, and she was super excited. She hugged everyone, even the
elders :P Than we went and tried to invite people to the party that
night, but nobody answered the door at all. So we cleaned up, and went
to the best party ever! It was huge. Since everybody's Independence
Day was this week, each country had a table set up with food and
cultural stuff set up. Then we all had a huge dinner and watched each
country do a presentation. I took a ton of videos, so I will try and
send them if I can. It was super cool, and there was a ton of
preparation involved. A ton of people showed up too, including one I
didn't expect at ALL: A! I don't know if you remember her, but she
was a less active lady in Conway we visited multiple times a week. She
showed up! It was super exciting to see her.

Sunday was pretty good too! We performed our musical number and it
went extremely well. Tears were shed. It was good. We made a video
(it's super awkward looking but it sounds good, I'll try to send it.)
I taught Gospel Principles too, and it went well. After church, there
was a lot of food left over from the party. I guess they forgot to put
chips out, so there was literally a full size lawn clipping garbage
bag full of them. We got through half as a branch after church, and
our goal is to finish them off today. Wish us luck :P After that, we
went out teaching with Bro. Z, but we didn't find anyone.
That's actually how it's been all this week. Like, literally one of
our planned lessons happened, and one unplanned. No one wanted to open
up this week, for some reason. But it's ok. At least we're going out
there, and if they think they're going to be able to avoid us forever,
they're wrong.

I'll end it with a Spanish saying I heard in church. It doesn't have
to do with anything, but it's cool.
"Un hombre que es realmente rico no es él que tiene mucho, sino él que
necesita poco."
In other words, "A truly rich man isn't someone who has much, but
someone who needs little."

¡Les amo muchísimo!
Elder Reay
Pics: me and A! I didn't get a picture with her ever in Conway, so
here she is!

Elder Reay and Elder Schoenfeld - together again - for a minute :)

Sister Tester and Sister Bennett

Colombians are Awesome!

Hola everybody! Hope you all had a great week!
First off, question: is this letter too long? I feel like it's a bit
big for those who don't really have a whole lot of time. I am thinking
of making a more summarized version for you guys and sending a
detailed one to Mom and Dad. What do you think? Give me some feedback!

Also, for all of you who got an invite to the ICloud album that
shortly disappeared, that was because I found out we actually aren't
allowed to use those. So, sorry about that. If you guys want to make
one and invite me, go right ahead! I just can't post stuff.

Labor Day was super fun. We didn't want to go anywhere because
everyone was on vacation, so we all got together at the church with
all the clearance water balloons we could find. Then we soaked each
other. It was great, and pretty much everyone played too! Then we went
to go find people. We didn't have much luck, with vacations and all.
Then the APs called. Guess what? They needed the van again. So, we got
THEIR truck this week. #unlimitedmiles #woo

Tuesday went pretty well! We saw one of the members that lives by us
that has been going through a rough time and helped them out a bit.
Then we went and looked for some more people without much luck. That
night we had more luck though. We went out teaching with Bro.
Z, and met with the V family. He gets along REALLY well
with them. We had a good talk.

Wednesday we went on exchanges! For the first time in my entire
mission, I went with Elder Schoenfeld to teach! It was super fun. We
went to some new trailer parks we had discovered on Sunday, and found
a lot of potential there. Definitely coming back. Then we had dinner
at the As house. It was incredibly delicious, and we both got
stuffed. The B family came too, which was a bit of a miracle!
They are semi-active, and we had been trying to get in contact with
them for weeks but they were never home. But not only did we meet
them, but we had a really good talk and I think made a connection with
them! After that we had the Book of Mormon class. A lot of people were
there, mainly because the members were doing planning for a branch
party and everyone was late. So, rather than waiting they all came to
class! J and L came too, which was fantastic. Then we did
music practice with the sisters for our song.

Thursday we didn't do a whole lot quantity-wise, but it was a great
day! Why? J told us he would be baptized! It was a really cool
experience. We talked about the basic principles of the gospel, and
Elder Moore blurted out (greenie fire is real) "what do you think
about being baptized in 2 weeks?" He looked a little unsure, but then
he said he would prefer it on his birthday, but yes! As soon as he
said it, it was like he changed completely. He was super excited! His
birthday is the 29th, the day before Elder Moore's, so afterwards we
are going to have a good ol' fiesta. But yeah, we are super stoked for
J. He has had some really spiritual experiences that have
prepared him for this.  After that we went to the new English class
the sisters had made. Only one person showed up, but it was ok, we
still all learned a lot.

Friday we had Specialized Training. It was really good! We tried out
the suggestion they had made in mission council about instead of role
playing what we had learned, to just go out and teach it. It was
great! All combined, we met 50 new people in total, and since we were
around the otter creek building where we live, all the Hispanics they
found we get to teach :) anyway, that went late so afterwards we just
did some weekly planning and stole some pizza the sisters made. Props
to you sister missionaries out there, you're awesome and us elders
appreciate you a lot :)
Then we went and played some futbol, which was great! Not a lot of
members came, and the adults there were off doing their own thing, so
we played against a bunch of 11-13year olds. We won, barely. And it
was all the missionaries and members against all the kids, they didn't
want to split teams! Kinda sad, they didn't even outnumber us. :P

Saturday we had the van again. We had to go print out some paperwork
at the library, which took forever since everyone was using the
computers. Then we went and contacted some people at the new trailer
parks. Miracle: the last door we felt we should knock on turned out to
be a less-active member we didn't know existed, and who really wants
to come back! Woo! Then we went around trying to find people. We got
to see D, the awesome guy from 2 weeks ago! He is doing well  and
we went over a bit more of what the Book of Mormon was really all
about. He seems to understand it well!

Sunday was the Primary Program, when the kids do a special
presentation in the main meeting. We combined with the English ward,
so it was pretty full. It was also extremely cute. I don't know why,
but my mission has made me love kids a lot more than I did. They are
just cooler, no offense :P anyway, the rest of church was good too.
Julian and his dad came, and the members welcomed them both really
well, which is fantastic. After church we gave up the car and biked
out to go visit some people. We saw R and had a good lesson with
him about the Book of Mormon. He seemed to understand it well.
Hopefully he reads!

All in all, it was a great week! I hope next week keeps getting
better! On another note, yesterday I hit my 19 month mark. EW. that's
just nasty. In a good way. But still. Anyhoo, love y'all! Bye!

¡Les amo muchísimo!

Our District

Spanish Sisters

Water Balloon Fight

Our trio's down to twooooo....

(Props if you got the reference.) Hello again from sunny Arkansas!
Monday we went to SAMs club for shopping. A member let us use her
card, so we got to buy in bulk. We'll see how long a 10 pound bag of
pancake mix lasts :P but yeah, we did that and then hung out at the
church, played a little dodgeball, and some cards and stuff. It was a
lot of fun! Then we dropped off the other elders and got ready to head
out, when we got a call from one of the families in Russelville that
Contreras was good friends with. Their daughter had just gotten set
apart for her mission, and was leaving the next day, so she wanted to
say goodbye to him and Schoenfeld. So we called them and Salazar
figured it would be a good a time as any to do exchanges! So we went
back, Moore packed his stuff, and we got picked up by the other elders
(the APs were sick so they took their car since they are neighbors)
and we went out to say hello/goodbye. She seemed pretty excited! She
is going to Kansas (ironically), so if anyone knows anyone, tell them
to keep an eye out for someone from Arkansas! So yeah, that happened
and we took Salazar home with us.

Exchanges on Tuesday went really well. To start the day, the office
elders called and said they would need our van for the meetings on
Tuesday and Wednesday. So, we made a trade, and we got the newest car
in the mission, their 2015 Chevy Silverado with unlimited miles.
Booyah. After that, we went to pick up some stuff from the other
elders (Moore had grabbed the wrong iPad) and went to go see some
people. We got to go and visit J, the kid who came to church last
week. He is so ready, it's incredible. He understands everything we
teach, and with his member girlfriend in Idaho helping answer his
questions, it's a really good system. He said she's already taken him
to see the Rexburg Temple and talked about how eternal marriage works
;) After that, we had dinner at A's house, which was delicious as
usual, and then tried some more people. We didn't have much success,
but at the end of the night we got to visit G and her kids,
F and W. They are a less active family, and they are super
sweet. Apparently in high school they called F "The Preacher"
because he always had a Bible and Book of Mormon he would read from.
:) They said they would come to church Sunday!

Wednesday we had zone meeting, which went well. We went over what we
learned at MLC, so I was already "in the loop." Plus, the Spanish
sisters had made us cookies, so we could make it through the meeting
just fine. :P  Then we had lunch with the APs and the North elders at
this Mexican place called Las Palmas. It was super good. Big fajitas
for little money. Enough said. Then we went and dropped off the other
elders. I have to be honest, I wasn't much of  truck person before
now, but these past few days made me reconsider. That is a darn nice
vehicle. Anyhoo, then we went home to change. Then President called
with some devastating news. Since he wanted Elder Contreras to be
proficient in English so that he could benefit from it in Guatemala,
he made the decision to MOVE HIM! We were pretty surprised. He didn't
even want to wait for the transfer to end, because supposedly he is
going to train an English missionary soon. Yeah. We have no idea how
he works sometimes. So that put him off for a bit. Then we went to the
Book of Mormon class. I've been "volunteered" as the new teacher for
the class, so I've been looking for ways to go about it. Luckily,
there are manuals on the iPad for Seminary and Institute classes, so
those have come in handy. After that, we were talking with the other
missionaries and an English member who plays piano by ear. I don't
even know how it came about, but after 10 minutes we had a sweet
mashup arrangement for "He Sent His Son" and "Love One Another" in
Spanish that we're singing in church in a few weeks. It's sweet,
Sister Bennet and I were kinda geeking out musically for a bit there
since we both like doing stuff like this.

Thursday was a bit slow. We had to wait for the other elders to bring
back the truck they borrowed the night before. Then we had to take
them to their place, and then we did some planning on the iPads to
figure out some new areas. We got to go visit Lucy, which went pretty
good. She was busy cooking, but we talked for a bit and she fed us, so
all went well. Then we saw the less active family we saw in Tuesday.
We had planned to re teach them the lessons, which worked perfectly
because they had some friends over! They are super cool too. One of
the girls, C, is super legit. She reminds me a lot of some of my
friends back home :) those were the only people we got to see that
day.

Friday was also slow. The APs needed our car for the day, so they put
us on walk and basically ruined all our plans. So we walked to some
close people so we could "use time efficiently." So of course no one
answered there. Then we went to where the APs were going to drop off
the car. They weren't answering the phone, and finally said they were
late. So we started walking home. The other elders got our car for us
up north and came down to pick us up. Then we went to soccer, which
was fun! A lot of people showed up, and we played hard. The other
elders stayed the night with us to see off Contreras the next morning.

Saturday Contreras left for Choctaw, AR. He didn't seem super excited
to go (I mean, we're so cool, why would he be? :P) but he will do
fine. We had studies with Schoenfeld and Salazar, which was cool. Then
we made some pancakes from our endless supply and headed out. We tried
out some new trailer parks, which went super well! We found some super
cool people and it was great! Then we grabbed some dinner and headed
out to go visit R, the guy I met my first week here. He was
actually home this time! We had a good talk with him, even though the
TV was on the whole time. (What on earth is going on with politics?
That's like all they talked about, but it was in Spanish so I didn't
get a lot of it.) but anyway, it was a good lesson. He said he would
come to church too!

Sunday was pretty good. It was Labor Day, so basically no one showed
up to church. We had about half of what we normally had. After that we
practiced our super cool mashup song, and it's going to sound awesome,
just saying. Then we headed out to go see J. We had met her in
Walmart the day before my and she seemed super excited to have us
over. She lives WAAAY out in the outskirts of town. So we finally make
it out there after getting lost a few times, and no one is home. So we
headed back, got lost a few more times. Then we got to visit L,
which went pretty well. She didn't come to church because they went on
 a day trip. National holidays are dumb. But anyway, that was our day.

Hope you all have a great Labor Day! Have fun doing nothing or
partying or whatever it is you people do! We are going to go have a
water fight now. It'll be sweet. Love you all so much! Byee!